Rain delay

Today maybe should have been a disappointment but it ended up being a relief and a success in a couple of extremely significant ways. We went to the French Open. It was our second visit to the tournament and this time we knew way better than to show up at the time that the first matches were scheduled to begin. We instead intended to arrive one hour before the matches were scheduled. We actually got inside the gates at about 55 minutes before the scheduled start. This gave us time to get this picture of the tennis player with the statue of Rene Lacoste.And we were still in the non-reserved seats that we had identified as the place where we wanted to sit, again at court 2, with 30 minutes to spare before the scheduled start of matches.

So far so good, but then it began to rain. We spent most of the next five hours watching this.It may not look like much but actually we were really, really fortunate to have the spot where we were sitting. We are on court 2, underneath an overhang from court 3. There are four rows of seats there, the length of the tennis court, no more than 200 seats total. They are absolutely the only seats on the entire grounds that are under cover. Not a single overpriced reserved seat in any of the three stadia or any of the seats on any of the other courts had any cover. We were the only dry people on the grounds. Not a single person left. We ALL, every single one of us, sat it out. We all knew we were dry and that no one else was.

Finally at long last the rain abated and these guys appeared to a thunderous ovation.And in the end it was all totally worth it. We had a rest day, no heavy schedule of walking, at the end of which was this. The fifth ranked player in the world from the third row.That's Elena Dementiava almost close enough to touch. There are lots of things you will never ever learn about women's tennis from watching on television. The one we learned today is what the velocity the top women are putting on the ball looks like in person. Unless you have been there and seen her hit it, you do not have complete information.

Tourisme

There is a new hotel going up in our neighborhood. Here is the sign. It is only advertising but finally I could not resist. Here, because I also love Paris, is the announcement of the 2011 opening of the new Mandarin Oriental.It rained last evening and today dawned looking a little iffy. The temperatures plummeted back into the actual average for this date. The 15-20 degree drop in Fahrenheit was actually very welcome.

But when we set out on some traditional tourism the clouds and wind made photography less than optimum. I took pictures anyway.

We have been looking at this thing from a distance since we arrived in Paris. Today my brother and I decided to go closer.For 13.10 Euros we were allowed onto the elevator to "le sommet". Invalides in the left foreground.Left foreground Place de la Concorde, next to the right the Tuileries, then the Louvre. Our apartment is about at the point where the left side extension of the Louvre begins, then a block over to the left. You can almost see us from here.Concorde upper right, Pont Alexandre, Grand Palais and Petit Palais.Arc d'Triomphe.The Statue of Liberty replica on an island in the river just downstream from the Tower.A typical riverside walkway.In the afternoon we went to the Musee D'Orsay. This is the clock left over from the building's origins as a train station now overlooking the main floor and the majority of the sculpture.But not overlooking the plaster version of "La Porte de l'Enfer" (the Gates of Hell) by Rodin. Later on this week we WILL be visiting the Musee Rodin and a photograph of the bronze version is almost certain to appear.

Hantuchova and the Americans on Court 2, it's the French Open baby

Before we left the morning walk took us past the residence of Louis Blériot, the Frenchman credited by many, most notably the French, as the first to successfully fly a powered heavier than air machine, the inventor of air flight, if you will.

As noted on the plaque, in 1909 Blériot completed the first flight across a large body of water in a heavier-than-air craft, when he crossed the English Channel from Calais to Dover.Then we went to the French Open. This sign provides the directions and distances to the sites of the other three Grand Slam tournaments.We mostly focused on the doings on Court 2.

Daniella Hantuchova.Followed by an all American mens' singles match between Robby Ginepriand Sam Querrey.Ginepri won.

Here's a Where's Waldo moment. Find the tennis player watching Ginepri v. Querrey.Then these two showed up to play doubles with virtually every American in France trying to be a part of what is going to go down as an overflow crowd on Court 2.

Venus.And Serena.We went down to the Tuileries last night at 10pm to watch the light show on the Eiffel Tower.Here is a link if you want to watch it yourself. They have the show every hour on the hour after dusk. Considering the time differential the one we saw will be on at 3pm central, 4 eastern. The show would be better an hour later when it is darker in Paris. With the amount of walking we are doing there just isn't any way I am lasting to 11pm Paris time. I am asleep by then.

Bank holiday

Here's one left over from yesterday. I am already publishing way, way too many photos and yesterday's five gravesite photos left me no room for this one taken on the way to the cemetery. This is the tennis player at the Opera Metro stop, some large building or another in the background.Today is a bank holiday in France which means that in addition to all of us, the regular tourist crowd of foreigners, the city is also overrun with French tourists. Too many people.

Even so, there were three excursions from the home base. This was taken on the before breakfast tour (also known as the look around can you believe it no other tourists walk). This is the Arc d'Triomphe du Carrousel. It is on the grounds of the Louvre. The arch lines up perfectly with the Arc d'Triomphe on the Champs Elysee (visible in the far background of the picture) and also with the Grand Arch at La Defense, more on that later.Here is the I.M. Pei pyramid entrance to the Louvre with the rising sun visible on the main building of the museum in the background. Also visible is that famous tower.On our second expedition we went looking for Arena Lutece. Arena Lutece is French for Roman arena. This arena was used by the Romans when Paris was part of the Roman Empire. The arena was used for sport and drama from the 1st through the 3rd centuries. It fell into disuse after the barbarians sacked Rome and was eventually lost. It was rediscovered by accident when the area was excavated for other purposes in the 1870s. The arena was restored. Here is the 1st century Arena Lutece.We visited the Cluny museum of the middle ages, (officially known as Musée National du Moyen Âge). The highlight for me was the 2nd century Roman baths but also included are these heads of the Kings of Judah from Notre Dame.When the mob sacked the city's palaces and churches during the Revolution they mistakenly believed that the 28 kings of Judah on the frieze above the entrance of Notre Dame were kings of France. The mob in its frenzy knocked the heads off the statues. A church worker gathered up the heads and buried them in his yard.

And there they stayed for 200 years until an excavation in the 1970s, again for other purposes, unearthed the heads and a few other relics. The church had long since been restored including restoration of the heads of the kings of Judah. The original heads were cleaned up and put on display at the Cluny.

Our third expedition took us to La Defense. Paris has preserved the old part of the city by, in part, allowing modern development only in an area away from the old core of the city. Today we went over there. It smells like bidness.

A centerpiece of the modern business district is the Grand Arch. It lines up with the Arc d'Triomphe and the Arc d'Triomphe du Carrousel. Here is what it looks like up close.It is Paris, so there is art. I don't know what that thumb is doing but I am pretty sure it is a thumb.Here is a shot from the top of the steps under the Grand Arch looking back towards the Arc d'Triomphe.So the post comes full circle from a shot of the Arc d'Triomphe taken from the next arch to the west to a shot of that famous arch taken from the next arch to the east.

In which we discover that we do not look American enough

I don't know, I think I look, especially while in France, conspicuously American. Yet on each of my three trips to France I have been mistaken for a French person by a native of this land. Every time I have been here I have had an incident of a French person approaching me in a public place and attempting to begin a conversation in French. Which I speak only enough of to provide a bit of humor to the salespeople in the boulangerie.

This trip on the first day I was approached in Monoprix (a large department store including grocery, think SuperTarget) by a youngish French woman who asked me a question of which I understood only the very, very basic parts. I had to reply (in English) that I don't speak French. I feared making that same reply in French although I do know the vocabulary necessary for framing that particular phrase. I feared, based on a Norwegian experience of one of my siblings, that if I did say "Je ne parle pas français" that she might look quizzically at me and then ask in English just exactly what language I do speak.

And then yesterday at the Concorde metro stop Mrs. Smith was approached by an excited Japanese lady who spoke apparently no French and only a few words of English. The lady held out a piece of paper upon which was written only the word "Louvre". With gestures and the few words of English that the Japanese lady knew Mrs. Smith directed her in the proper direction for the short walk through the Tuileries (the gardens? exclaimed the Japanese lady delightedly) to the museum.

Apparently we do not look enough like Americans.

The group set out shortly before 10am this morning intending to circumnavigate Notre Dame and walk past a couple of other sites hoping to return home before noon.

I wanted to see Tour Saint Jacques. The tower dates from 1523 and is the last remnant of the ancient church of Saint Jacques de Boucher. Apparently the church was dedicated to butchers. The church was destroyed after the revolution with only the tower surviving. This tower was under renovation during both of our other visits to France, hidden behind a construction screen which extended all the way to the top of the tower. The renovation is complete and I wanted to head over that way and get a look at what I have seen described in a couple of places in very glowing terms.

Well, it is amazing. And as luck would have it we dumb luck stumbled onto an authentic cultural moment. The guild of butchers was having a ceremony today honoring the tower as the last remnant of the church dedicated to their craft.The guys in blue shirts and white aprons on the steps of the tower are not actors, they are butchers, members of the butcher's guild. It was a nicely impressive ceremony.

Around on the sunny side of the tower I got a picture of the whole tower.We next walked past this on the way to Notre Dame. This is a hospital entrance. The information sign says that although not this exact structure that there has been a hospital on this site since 651.We next walked down the north side of Notre Dame.

Gargoyles.Here is a view of the church from the back side with nice visible detail of the flying buttresses.We had lunch in the Latin Quarter. Here is the tennis player at the entry to the official narrowest street in Paris, the street of the cat who fishes.We have arrived back at home and I am preparing the first part of the blog. We think we may venture out later this afternoon and attempt to view the main sites at Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, the burial grounds of Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Chopin, Isadora Duncan, Gertrude Stein, Modigliani, Delacroix and also, of course, the major American attraction, M. Jim Morrison.

Addendum: We went out to the cemetery.

Frederic Chopin, only his body, his heart is buried in Warsaw.Jim Morrison.Edith Piaf.Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.Oscar Wilde.

Roland Garros

Yesterday's post of the translator and maman produced an obvious request for a Tuileries photo featuring grass and flowers. Despite the gravel surface conditions of yesterday's photo, providing grass and flowers is absolutely no problem. This photo also continues the whole flowering shrub theme.And only a couple of steps further along here are some flowers to go with the grass and this time you get a sign identifying some sort of upcoming garden show.These were both taken on the morning walk which means that they are extraordinary views of the Tuileries, seen by only a very, very tiny proportion of all of the people who ever take photos of the Tuileries. These photos show the flowers and grass but they show no other human beings in a public park which for most of the day will be absolutely c-r-a-w-l-i-n-g with way too many people.

The morning walk continued on the far side of the Seine which took us past Musee D'Orsay. The museum has some interesting sculpture just standing around outside, like this rhinoceros.The picture I posted yesterday of the first view we ever had of Paris was disappointing to me in that there were so many cars and vans that interfered with my enjoyment of the objects pictured. I retook the picture on the morning walk when no one else was around.Right next to where we took that photo we passed in front of the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume. The building itself was originally built as a site for the king's tennis court. It is now a museum of contemporary art. My picture of the gallery includes a tennis player peering through the front doors.We then went out to Roland Garros. We wanted to scout out the route and get a lay of the land. The actual tennis tournament doesn't start until tomorrow but today was children's day. Children were admitted free but we had to pay. We did pay and went inside to discover a much larger crowd than we expected.

There was an exhibition match on the center court of the main stadium. The players were Gael Monfils, the top ranked French player, against another Frenchman. The match was the top French player on his home court with his home crowd in support. It was only an exhibition but M. Monfils had the rapt attention of an overflow crowd. There were French people sitting in the aisles.
I like this photo taken during the warm up because it shows the French crowd enjoying themselves with a pretty much complete stadium wave. Even Mrs. Smith participated.

As we were making our way towards the exit a young Chinese woman with a microphone stepped out of the crowd and asked me if I spoke English. Since I in fact do speak English I replied in the affirmative. She asked me if I would appear on camera and led me over to her cameraman and proceeded to conduct an interview. I answered the usual questions about where I was from, how we had come to be at the tournament and who I thought would win. She then dropped the bomb asking me if I knew any Chinese tennis players. I know about the two women who have recently had excellent results but had to admit that I do not know their names. She asked whether I thought that a Chinese person could some day win the tournament to which I responded that I expected that a Chinese person WOULD win the tournament, citing the fact that the Chinese have been successful in the other international sporting endeavors they have attempted and that I assumed the same would be true for tennis.

Who knows, I may soon be interviewing for a position with ESPN-China.

Translator arrives

We were getting along OK but having someone who speaks the language is extremely helpful. Here is the still severely jet lagged Wireless with her "maman" on a morning walk to the Tuileries.The connection between our group and our translator was made at this, the very famous art deco Palais Royal Metro stop.My brother and I took a morning walk. This isn't even art, it is just the outside of the building. It is the Porte de Lion, the Lion gate to the Lourvre Museum.We walked down to Notre Dame. Here is some detail from the frieze to the left of the left side entrance. Saint Denis is the patron saint of Paris. The story of his sainthood is that when he was beheaded he paused briefly, then picked up his head and continued on with his mission. The figure second from the right is Saint Denis carrying his head.A continuation of the flowering shrub theme is these flowering shrubs at the corner of Avenue Carnot and Avenue Tilsit. They are definitely not lilacs.One block behind me when I took that photo was this deal.Here's the downside of our apartment. We are on the French fifth floor, the American sixth (the French count the ground floor as floor zero).The upside is that we have an elevator. The downside of the elevator is that it is the smallest elevator any of us have ever seen. The safety plate says that maximum occupancy is three but we have yet to even attempt more than two. Two is a pretty tight fit.

Jet lag is improving but as afternoon rolls around we are still pretty knackered. The new arrival is feeling it too but at her age she can reasonably expect a much more rapid full recovery.